L.A.'s LGO hospitality ready for some home cooking.

After years feeding mouths in Phoenix, L.A.-based LGO Hospitality LLC is building its business closer to home. The company has signed leases to open two Southland restaurants. One is a 6,200-square-foot site at the Santa Fe Railway Depot in Pasadena and the other is 4,300 square feet on Main Street in Santa Monica. LGO hopes to open those within the next 18 months and plans to develop another in a West Hollywood boutique hotel.

The local restaurants will add to LGO's operations in Phoenix, where it is responsible for a restaurant called Chelsea's Kitchen and an array of offerings in a renovated strip mall that includes a wine bar, grocery, bakery and cafe. The company has also secured 5,800 square feet of space to run a full-service restaurant in Dallas.

Bob Lynn, president and founder of LGO, recently left a position as second-in-command of Houston's, which is owned by L.A.-based Hillstone Restaurant Group, to lead a comparty without the corporate trappings of a large chain.

'I wanted to do something on my own that was more organic. where we weren't really doing the same thing over and over again," he said.

Lynn said the local restaurants would be sophisticated, yet casual and accessible. At the Pasadena spot, there will be a wine bar, pizzeria and the Le Grande Orange Cafe. Prices there will range from $6 to $11 for lunch plates and $18 to $20 for dinner plates. He hasn't picked out a name for the Santa Monica location.

Lynn envisions LGO controlling diverse hospitality holdings--wine bars, bakeries and casual dining options are part of the mix--so each unit can have an individual personality. And although the company is starting to get large--it will generate an estimated $20 million-plus this year and has 200 employees-Lynn said it would not go public or rapidly push expansion:

"'We are going to be focused on doing one location at a time," said Lynn. "When you grow' too fast, what you end up giving up is your depth of knowledge. Then, people start to sense that restaurants feel corporate."

At LGO. Lynn said he's also making his management structure different from many other restaurant companies by giving culinary talent, as well as executives, equity opportunities. The aim is to reduce turnover by giving employees the incentive to stay with the company.